OSPod 104 After-After Show-Show!
Added 2024-10-16 13:00:12 +0000 UTCThe gang dishes on the best action-animation properties of the '80s and '90s, from Transformers to TMNT to GI Joe, unpacking what made each of them so fun as well as how often we could feel we were being sold toys to. Transformers, being Toyetic in the extreme, is the worst offender.
Comments
The clearest example (I think) of Transformers being designed toy first then show is the Unicron Trilogy of cartoons, being most clear with Optimus' weight problem in Energon
Manamius
2024-10-22 16:06:07 +0000 UTCThe "evil experiment by deceptions" thing does happen in the "Fall of Cybertron" video game. You don't see the pre-experiment version of Grimlock but it's strongly implied that Grimlock was captured either during, or shortly before the first mission
Gabriel
2024-10-21 16:45:35 +0000 UTCThe worst human in a BayFormerVerse movie was the boyfriend of the main human's daughter, who was older than her, and carried around - in his wallet - something about Romeo and Juliet laws. AND TELLS PEOPLE ABOUT SAID LAWS AND SHOWS OFF HIS LAMINATED CARD
Scott Jacobs
2024-10-19 21:31:15 +0000 UTCRe: Show where the team is more important than the showrunner, I’d say Avatar: The Last Airbender. The individual names I know (creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino, writer Aaron Ehasz and director Giancarlo Volpe) have all tried to make lightning strike twice but it wasn’t quite right.
Thomas Blight
2024-10-19 01:49:20 +0000 UTCIt warms my heart to hear someone else share my contempt for the 'Mystery Box' school of storytelling! Personally I attribute 75% of the issues with 'The Last Jedi' to the laundry list of Mystery Boxes that JJ Abrams overloaded 'The Force Awakens' with, which hung around Rian Johnson's neck like a whole damn necklace of albatrosses.
Aldo Adamo
2024-10-18 16:25:23 +0000 UTCA interesting character for the silent characters trope talk would be Marci from dota dragon blood. She hit two point of the four you brought up. Quite loyal follower and strong silent tip.
Steven Schmid
2024-10-17 21:22:31 +0000 UTCThis guy is REALLY GOOD when it comes to the history of almost EVERYTHING Transformers, including their history from the beginning. https://youtu.be/HgcX9kGUpDw?si=qGWdpr1v_8zc80wc
Eric Stovall
2024-10-17 20:33:35 +0000 UTCI feel you SO HARD on not getting anymore of Transformers Prime, but there is more out there from that universe, called the Alligned Continuity by Hasbro. Especially in book form. Check out Transformers Exodus and its sequels, or its full art book called The Covenant of Primus! Not to mention its video games: War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. Thats where you get Grimlock being created by Shockwave tragically and horrifically!
Eric Stovall
2024-10-17 19:57:31 +0000 UTCI was coming here to say the same thing. One of my favorite characters. Even after she gains the ability to speak, she's very taciturn, and there are a lot of times in that original Puckett/Scott run of her comic where she says almost nothing, even in the narration boxes, but the art still communicates everything that she's thinking and feeling.
The Narrator
2024-10-17 15:14:18 +0000 UTCToy first then show is a good way to describe most of the lego shows (Ninjago, legends of chima, bionical/hero factory), and shows like Slugterra and Chaotic
Mini_Mumbles
2024-10-17 14:29:58 +0000 UTCThe praise for Carmilla in Castlevania from the main pod reminds me - if you want to see the range of that actor, Jamie Murray, go find a BBC series from the mid-00s called *Hustle*. It’s a show about a team of con-artists that feels like a precursor to *Leverage*. It’s also interesting to contrast it with Leverage as showing how two different cultures approach a similar story concept. There’s a lot of stylistic similarities here and there but it still stands out as its own show.
Anthony Wilson
2024-10-17 04:18:08 +0000 UTCFor a small taste to see if you’d like it, check out the chaos theory two parter from the same creative team (listed as #22 and 23 in the previous Transformers ongoing series) it shows off both the art and writing style of this team, seeds in some worldbuilding ideas that would become important in More Than Meets the Eye, and offers a look at both pre-war Optimus and Megatron, and a fun conversation between the two reminiscing about the war. “Megatron: You nearly cut off my arm at Sherma Bridge. Remember Sherma Bridge? Both our armies literally stopped shooting to watch us fight. Prime: Which Arm? Megatron: the cannon arm, you always went for the cannon arm!!”
Jason Veevaert
2024-10-17 02:54:12 +0000 UTCOn managing writing rooms and creative teams, I wonder if studying Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live would be interesting. It's not like I think SNL is always top notch, but a comedy skit show being able to remain relevant for, what, 50 years now, is pretty impressive and can't be an accident.
Lethargo
2024-10-17 02:14:09 +0000 UTCOn the topic of both Transformers and silent characters, the IDW Transformers comics do an interesting version of Grimlock (specifically the More than Meets the Eye comic) that covers both silent badass and sympathy bait. By combining his characterizations of hardened badass dinosaur warrior and “Me Grimlock” they make him a survivor of brain damage, so he’s still this dangerous (and averagely intelligent) but it’s now frustratingly hard for him to speak and convey what he’s feeling, which makes him angry and more violent. He then gets taken in by a group of former Decepticon Scavengers (the war’s ended by this point) originally as a bargaining tool if caught, but one of them starts giving Grimlock some behavioral therapy to try and articulate himself. Seriously, please check out at least the More Than Meets the Eye comic! Aside from Ratchet, Ultra Magnus, flashbacks to pre-war Optimus and a very interesting post war Megatron, the main characters are all relative unknowns that will become your favorite characterizations of them!
Jason Veevaert
2024-10-17 00:52:33 +0000 UTC(Sythwave voice) MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!!
Jason Veevaert
2024-10-17 00:42:39 +0000 UTCMy first after after show show where I'm listening directly after the main podcast! And I gotta comment here, cause where else am I going to do it. I AM HYPED FOR THE DND BONUS POD!
KipOfTheMany
2024-10-16 23:45:36 +0000 UTCThe episode conclusion!!
Scott Jacobs
2024-10-16 23:21:17 +0000 UTCShe’s simultaneously badass and sympathy bait (until she stops being silent like 12 issues in lol)
R. C. Alloy
2024-10-16 20:22:18 +0000 UTCFor the silent badass, don't forget one of the batgirls (Casanda Cain, iirc)
Scott Jacobs
2024-10-16 19:27:28 +0000 UTCNo idea if Red reads these comments, but if she does, I would direct her attention to the video games War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. They're a bit hard to get these days, but they take place in the same continuity as Prime, and they contain a pleasant surprise for her in particular.
William Edward
2024-10-16 19:06:25 +0000 UTCOn the other end of the toyetics scale, you get characters that were clearly designed to be made into toys, but the toys were never actually made. (see: the complete and utter absence of Owl House merchandise)
Alycia Shedd
2024-10-16 18:36:31 +0000 UTCMy experience with the Transformers fandom, back in the 2000s, was mostly people screaming about how the franchise had been "ruined forever" by whatever was currently on TV, generally something that no one would give a damn about six months later.
Alycia Shedd
2024-10-16 17:38:58 +0000 UTCI mean, it sounds like that. Any nuance is locked away until the first issue of absolute superman comes out
PinDaGreat
2024-10-16 16:19:40 +0000 UTCI'm absolutely losing my mind that Red hasn't watched Transformers One yet. It's literally the best piece of Transformers media in a decade or so. Also the version of Grimlock she described she likes does exist in othet places. Play Transformers Fall of Cybertron!
Arthur Del Castillo
2024-10-16 16:13:06 +0000 UTCSo they stole Supergirl's origin and gave it to Superman?
The Narrator
2024-10-16 16:07:15 +0000 UTCIn the main pod, Blue talked about making a third Superman Detail Diatribe and I think that Absolute Superman might end up giving some motivation for that video. I've heard great things about Absolute Batman, and I think the new take on Superman where he wasn't raised on earth but learns humanity anyway that has been the pitch for it might be something that could motivate a thesis
PinDaGreat
2024-10-16 15:54:58 +0000 UTC(Making a second comment because it’s gonna be a tangent relative to my first one, even if both are about Transformers): it’s kinda funny how much Transformers came from the toys first then the show. The original series was based on multiple separate Japanese toy lines that Hasbro imported then combined into a single toy line. So the characters weren’t even supposed to be in the same universe at first, they just bought a bunch of toys and gave them to some writers who were told to just make a story out of it. Afterwards the process was streamlined a lot, Hasbro partnered more closely with Takara (now Takara Tomy), the company that was actually making the toys originally, and stories started getting more ambitious with their character writing and world building, but it still all started with Hasbro importing multiple Takara toy lines, smushing them together, and slapping a new name onto the result.
Andrew P
2024-10-16 15:33:48 +0000 UTCRed, your point about being in the Transformers fandom being a “special circle of hell” because you’ll never see those characters again really hit home to me. I got into Transformers as a little kid with the series Transformers Armada. Aka, the one and only series to give Starscream a redemption arc. And it came out a few years before Avatar, so that version of Starscream was my formative redemption arc story, years before Zuko. AND IT ENDED IN A TRAGEDY! He died performing a heroic sacrifice. And when the sequel, Transformers Energon, revived him, he had no memories of who he was before, and died again, loyal to Megatron. And no other story will actually give him a redemption arc anymore. (Apparently like, a couple things faked out redemptions but didn’t bother completing them). I have seen and enjoyed other pieces of Transformers media, like Prime and One, bringing things more on topic, but I totally understand your concerns with engaging with other pieces of TF media.
Andrew P
2024-10-16 15:09:52 +0000 UTCOh Red are you a WBN patron? Got one of those Brennan Remix Summer Jams stuck in your head? Put it in a box!
Heliks
2024-10-16 14:51:14 +0000 UTCYEAHHHHHH TRANSFORMERS!!!
Fish_Hemsworth
2024-10-16 13:02:48 +0000 UTC
